Nehad Selaiha applauds the timing, context, artistry and political implications of a student production of Wendy Wasserstein's Third by the drama group of the English department of Cairo University Wendy Wasserstein's Third, by the Drama Group of the English Department Cultural Society of Cairo University, directed by Dina Amin, 24 April, 2012 Feminists are notorious for their vehement critique and vilification of the traditional binary oppositions embedded in all patriarchal cultures. In seeking to subvert them, however, some have tended to reverse the hegemonic order in this inherited, male model rather than dismantle it altogether. Though some claim that this model, which privileges one set of attributes (male, high, straight, spiritual, etc.) over another (female, low, tortuous, earthly, etc.), is naturally inbuilt in the human mind, it has been strongly argued that challenging such a mindset is essential to creative thinking and the attainment of freedom. In Po: Beyond Yes and No (1973), a book that my daughter gave me for a birthday present in the 1980s, the author, Edward de Bono, a Maltese physician and thinker, advocated a third way of thinking that left behind such traditional oppositions as yes and no, true, or false. Whereas NO was the basic tool of the Logic System and YES was the basic tool of the Belief System, he argued, PO (meaning Provocative Operation, also related to POetry and hyPOthesis) was the basic tool of the Creative System. This system he called Lateral thinking, or thinking sideways, so to speak. Only by adopting this mode of thinking, he asserted, can the dominant patterns favoured by the human brain be combated and disrupted and its deep seated assumptions be circumvented. Rather than stay locked up in the arid strife between 'yes' and 'no', he advises, one should constructively probe and explore the grey areas that lie in between in search of new perspectives and solutions. Such an option involves risks, disquietude and anxiety; without it, however, one could not hope for spiritual rejuvenation and guard against moral stagnation and intellectual rigidity. Years later, precisely in 2001, during the (ill-omened and ultimately unhappy) 13th edition of the Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre (regrettably cancelled last year and showing no signs of reviving this year or ever), and only a few days before the 9/11 holocaust, the idea of 'third' options popped up again in connection with creativity in the context of theatre. The place was Café Estoril in downtown Cairo where I had retired with Eugenio Barba and Julia Varley (both of whom were honoured by the festival that year) between shows for a break from the bustle and some refreshments. I had been explaining to them the emergence of the independent theatre movement in Egypt in the late 1980s and the hope of its pioneers to forge a new way to operate and make theatre away from the constraints and compromises of the state-run and commercial sectors, a way that would guarantee spaces and subsidies without succumbing to government control or subscribing to market values. 'A third way,' I think I said. At this Eugenio and Julia brightened and exchanged surprised looks. Had I read Ian Watson's 1995 book Towards a Third Theatre: Eugenio Barba and the Odin? Over the years Barba had evolved the idea of a 'Third Theatre,' a theatre that draws on multiple cultural resources, know no cultural or ethnic boundaries, achieves "the greatest possible effect from the least possible means," and is neither avant-garde nor mainstream, but a space where actors are encouraged to perform as a means of self-discovery. Barba's 'Third Theatre' identifies an ideological position that opposes hegemony, bigoted oppositional stands, cultural chauvinism and the marginalization of the underprivileged. In the fairy tales I read as a child, there were always 3 roads proposed to heroes on a quest: a safe road (sikket el-salama), a sorrowful second (sikket el-nadama), and a third that held no promise of return, that could never be travelled back to the starting point (sikket elli yerooh ma yerga'sh). For a long time this third option had struck me as the most fearful, threatening perdition or perpetual exile. As 'third' became a favourite word and position with me, however, I began to wonder if that third choice did not mean quite the opposite of what I thought, that it meant, perhaps, that the hero would come back, but not as the same person who went away, that he would undergo a change as a result of the journey, becoming better and wiser. Or may be he would return by another road, following the dictum of Ibn Battuta, the 14th Century Moroccan traveler, philosopher, medic and theologian who wisely advised: "Never take the same road twice." That director Dina Amin and the drama group of the cultural society of the English department (the EDCS) at Cairo University chose Wendy Wasserstein's last play, Third, for their annual Spring production this year delighted me no end (as you may surmise, given my long prejudice for the title word); but it also surprised me, and not only on account of the play's demands in terms of space, budget, good performers, sets and mature reception. Indeed, I had few fears on such scores. Over the past 3 years, the combined efforts of Dina Amin and professor Nadia El-Guindi, inflamed and fed by the zeal and ardour of the younger members of the Drama Group (junior members of the department staff as well as students) have, against great odds and in the face of horrendous, well-nigh impossible challenges, effected an amazing qualitative leap in the intellectual and artistic standards of the student performances staged at Cairo University, bringing them closest to professionalism and, sometimes, as in the case of Third, beating the professionals at their own game and far surpassing them in selfless dedication and the ethics of professional integrity. My surprise and extreme gratification at the EDCS' staging of Third was prompted and enhanced by the intellectual audacity of the choice, its honest, mature moral sobriety, artistic sophistication and implicit, level-headed political activism. At a time of extreme ideological polarization, when bigotry seems rampant and conservatism has full sway, when the liberal-secularist Left and conservative Islamist Right in Egypt seem locked in lethal, seemingly eternal conflict, with no hope of reconciliation, no 'third' way-out in sight, Wasserstein's Third seems to strike at the heart and root of the problem. If only we could concede, as Irene Backalenick has insightfully argued in her review of the 2005 production of Third at the Lincoln Center 'that the most righteous of people, even those who proclaim tolerance and open-mindedness, can in fact be rigid and narrow' and that this 'can apply to both ends of the political/social spectrum', the world may have a hope. More relative to Egypt, however, is the radical challenge, at the very core of the play, to the value of 'obedience' as the cornerstone of the cultural heritage and the basis of all education. In Social Backwardness: The Psychology of the Oppressed, Mustafa Higazi draws attention to the existence in backward societies of a rigid, one-directional pattern of domination/submission which characterizes all relationships within the family, in the school, the workplace, as well as the political, religious and social spheres, and permeates all activities including mental and intellectual ones (see Al-Takhaluf Al-Igtima'I: Sykologiyat Al-Insan Al-Maqhoor, The Arab Development Institute, Beirut, 1986, 238). In this relationship, as Brazilian educator Paulo Friere points out in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed: "Almost always ॥circ;¦ the oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors, or "sub-oppressors." The very structure of their thought has been conditioned by the contradictions of the concrete, existential situation by which they were shaped. Their ideal is to be men; but for them, to be men is to be oppressors. This is their model of humanity. This phenomenon derives from the fact that the oppressed, at a certain moment of their existential experience, adopt an attitude of "adhesion" to the oppressor. Under these circumstances they cannot "consider" him clearly to objectivize him -- to discover him "outside" themselves. This does not necessarily mean that the oppressed are unaware that they are downtrodden. But their perception of themselves as oppressed is impaired by their submersion in the reality of oppression. At this level, their perception of themselves as opposites of the oppressor does not yet signify engagement in a struggle to overcome the contradiction; the one pole aspires not to liberation, but to identification with its opposite pole" (http://www.scribd.com/doc/4811889/Paulo-Freire-Pedagody-of-Oppressed, Chapter 1). As this pattern of domination/submission gains in force in human and social relationships, the mentality of the people loses its flexibility, resilience and dialectical powers and becomes rigid and categorical. This results in a cultural valorisation of blind obedience as a supreme virtue, making any questioning of the authority of fathers, husbands, teachers, rulers, bosses and/or religious leaders a mortal sin. Such valorisation of obedience was eloquently summed up and consecrated by Egyptian poet Ahmed Shawqi in a line of poetry that has been taught to children since it was written in the 1920s; it orders them: "To thy teacher stand up in full veneration Like God's messenger he should be in your estimation." In one respect Wasserstein's Third is a cautionary tale to students about being taken in, browbeaten or derailed by star academics, however attractive, prestigious, widely published and liberal sounding. Third is after all about a bright young scholarship student at a prestigious New England college who, because he is white, male and 'straight', has the ill fortune to carry the name 'Woodson Bull the Third' and is on the college wrestling team, a sport generally denigrated by intellectuals, finds himself automatically stereotyped as the epitome of white male privilege and unjustly saddled with conservative political views and Republican allegiances by a feminist, ultra liberal literature professor of strong left-wing views and is subsequently victimized by her. As the play makes clear, 'Third' is quite different from what his professor, the renowned, highly articulate and highly unorthodox Laurie Jameson, has made him out to be. He is simply an intelligent young man with an open mind and many interests, just setting out to explore the world and himself. Indeed, as Jill Dolan noted in a review of a production of the play entitled 'Performance Contexts: Wendy Wasserstein's Third in Los Angeles,' and published in The Feminist Spectator on 8 November 2007: 'Wasserstein endows Third, in fact, with all the graces Laurie lacks. His genuine curiosity about people leads him to take gay and lesbian studies classes along with courses in Shakespeare; he's read widely in the subaltern literature of the day. He purposefully puts himself in situations that "other" him, and admits that even Laurie's negative attention and accusations about his scholarship made him more interesting than he'll ever be to anyone again as a conventional white, middle-class, heterosexual male.' That his teacher, who belongs to the 1960s' generation who dreamed of transforming the world and dismally failed, has remained stuck there is her penalty and penance. In a moment of truth at the end, after the damage had been done and her blind bias had terminated Third's scholarship and forced him out of her college on an unjust charge of plagiarism, she regretfully admits: "My thinking has become as staid as the point of view I fought to overrule." 'Is Wasserstein saying,' as Nancy Grossman wondered in her review of the 2008 Huntington Theatre production, 'that it is inevitable, the natural order of things, that we all become "the establishment" to the next generation?' May be this is 'the hardest pill to swallow for people who grew up in the Sixties and truly expected to both change and rule the world, and for feminists who have had difficulty creating a leadership model that differs from that of the entrenched male', she concludes. Among those present at the Egyptian premiere of Third at the modest Cairo university hostel theatre in Giza I found enough evidence to contradict the latter half of Grossman's statement; many liberal academics who belonged to the 1960s' generation and had once dreamed of changing the world were there, but with no bitterness, no hypocrisy, no grandiose self-delusions, no smug self-righteousness and no temptation or inclination to take out their personal frustrations, private, grievances, emotional failures, secret sorrows or family troubles on their students as Laurie Jameson does in the play. Indeed, no where in Cairo could you find such a congregation of fine female scholars and prestigious academics who were the exact opposite of Wasserstein's Laurie Jameson. Regardless of class, religion, attire, ethnic provenance, ideological leanings or professional status, a warm, cordial, friendly atmosphere, an air of elegant geniality and unreserved acceptance of difference, a refreshing lack of ceremony, permeated the hall as teachers mingled with students, knowing almost all of them by name. It was enough to cheer the saddest of hearts and invigorate the most depressed spirits. In such affectionate warmth (and I am not referring to the sweltering heat inside the hall due to the lack of natural ventilation, ceiling fans or air conditioning), Grossman's depressing words about 'feminists who have had difficulty creating a leadership model that differs from that of the entrenched male' seemed to melt away. There, in that hall, was ample refutation ॥circ;" so many beautiful people, eager to share, promote and celebrate creativity. Notwithstanding the oppressive heat, the cramped stage and the dreary lack of technical facilities, the atmosphere inside the theatre was the most heartening, most jovial and invigorating. More invigorating still was the performance. On a cramped, technically ill-equipped stage, and with no budget except for the most minimal sets and props, Dina Amin gave the play a slightly shortened but powerful production, well thought out, well-crafted, sensitively paced and subtly shadowed. She made up for the lack of visual embellishments and frills by concentrating on the actors, putting the successive confrontations and face offs between the characters in sharp focus and fully revealing their latent meanings. While giving full weight to the serious import of the scenes, she took care to underline and do full justice to the often dark, belligerent wit and wry humour of the smart, intelligent dialogue and pinpoint its many subtle ironies. To provide the right atmosphere ॥circ;" a gently nostalgic atmosphere redolent of the 1960s ॥circ;" and mark the change of mood and emotional timbre from scene to scene, Amin sagaciously roped in and effectively used the superb musical talents of the brothers Amr and Mada Khaled. Strumming their guitars, with Mada also signing and playing a harmonica, they not only overtured the performance and filled in the blackouts in between the scenes with Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Blowin' in the Wind," Jim Morrison and the Doors' "People are Strange," and John Denver's "Country Roads," thus wrapping Laurie Jameson, the child of the sixties in a poignant musical halo that softened our judgment of her actions, but also provided original music to smooth over the transition from one place, time or crisis to the next, and sometimes softly accompanied the acting, giving eloquent voice to silences or finely announcing emotional shifts. The effect was to blend all the episodes in one, smooth, uninterrupted flow. In terms of actors, there was no big problem, I think, casting Woodson Bull III, Laurie's innocent victim, or her daughter Emily, back on holiday from another college to rediscover her mother and be disappointed. Both Mohamed Agamy as Third and Miriam El-Naggar as Emily gave credible, sympathetic performances and were generally congenial and affable. Casting the other three parts, however, was a great challenge, since 2 of them are of menopausal female professors, one of whom is a victim of a recurrence of breast cancer to boot, while the third is of Laurie's aged, senile, Lear-like father. Fortunately for Amin, Zeinab Magdy and Dahlia Mostafa were close at hand to take on Laurie and Nancy Gordon. Both had worked with her before and proved richly talented and highly disciplined. Of the two, Dahlia had the lighter burden. Tall and painfully thin, though without grace and elegance, Dahlia, with the help of a scarf, a few make-up touches and the right costumes (correctly provided by costume and make-up artist Mariz Kelada), could look fittingly emaciated and assume the tone and posture of an intelligent woman grown wiser by extreme suffering. Kelada's costumes and make-up were also of invaluable help Mohamed Lasheen as the aged Alzheimer's victim. Wandering around in a daze, he raved and ranted creditably, albeit in an exaggerated theatrical strain. Fortunately for him, Zeinab Magdy, as Laurie, was always close at hand to restrain the theatricality and make him more sympathetic and humanly moving. His master scene was the one in which, like the octogenarian, senile father in King Lear, the play over the interpretation of which Laurie and Third deeply differ, and which brings the conflict between them to a head, wanders out into a storm, not knowing who he is or where he is, and is timely rescued by Laurie, acting Cordelia-like in a deeply poignant way. It was on Zeinab Magdy's shoulders that the heaviest burden in terms of acting squarely fell. It was up to her to make the play float or sink. All depended on her performance. Indeed, even a professional, well-seasoned actress would find Laurie quite a hurdle and a handful. Laurie, brittle, deeply flawed, stridently self-righteous and aggressively self-confident, but at the same time disillusioned and self-doubting ॥circ;" a woman ruthlessly clinging to a dream and refusing to surrender her innocence, at once capable of extreme blind injustice and arrogant pride and of extreme tender solicitude just repentance ॥circ;" is a complex, difficult character that many would shy away from. But Magdy valiantly took her on, wrestled with her with desperate determination, and gained the better of her. A petite femme, probably 30 years too young for the role, Zeinab Magdy performed it superbly, with stunning transparency, real passion, clear understanding and emotional eloquence, and without a single false note. It was quite a feat to pull off, and I am only sorry that she could display it for only one night.
